Ark Data Centres Receives Approval for UK Campus Expansion — Full Details
Where the expansion is happening
- Location: Spring Park campus, Westwells Road, Corsham (Wiltshire, England)
- Adjacent to: residential areas including Wadswick Green retirement village
- Approval date: February 2026 after roughly 18 months of review
- Authority: Wiltshire Council (conditional approval)
Local authorities delayed the decision earlier due to technical documents and environmental concerns, particularly flooding risks, before granting permission with conditions. (Data Center Dynamics)
What will be built
The project includes:
- A new 18-metre-tall data centre building
- Floor space: 27,350 sqm (≈294,000 sq ft)
- Construction beside the existing campus
- Landscaping, drainage and infrastructure controls required
Once completed, the site will grow to seven data centres in total:
- 5 already operating
- 1 approved in 2024
-
- this newly approved facility (Data Center Dynamics)
Why the expansion matters
Ark operates 27 facilities across nine sites in the UK and Belgium with over 560 MW of capacity, serving:
- UK government departments
- public-sector agencies
- Crown Hosting joint venture clients (Data Center Dynamics)
The company warned during the planning process it could invest elsewhere internationally if approvals stalled, highlighting how competitive the global data-centre market has become. (Data Center Dynamics)
Bigger industry context
The approval comes amid a massive boom in British data-centre investment driven by AI, cloud computing, and government digital infrastructure needs.
Across the UK, multiple hyperscale projects worth tens of billions of pounds are being planned or approved to support computing demand. (City AM)
Local concerns
Residents raised objections including:
- Flood-risk worries
- Environmental impact
- Proximity to homes
More than 1,100 public comments were submitted on the proposal, most opposing the expansion. (Data Center Dynamics)
What it means
This approval signals:
- Continued government reliance on domestic hosting infrastructure
- Expansion of sovereign cloud capacity
- Rising demand from AI workloads
- Increasing planning tensions between infrastructure growth and local communities
The project strengthens the UK’s position as a major European data-centre hub while also highlighting the planning challenges that accompany large-scale digital infrastructure developments.
Ark Data Centres campus expansion — case studies and commentary
The recent approval for expansion at the Corsham campus operated by Ark Data Centres in Corsham highlights how digital infrastructure projects now sit at the intersection of technology policy, energy planning and community politics.
Below are real-world style case studies explaining what this decision represents beyond a single building.
Case studies
1) Sovereign-cloud infrastructure (government reliance)
Situation
The site hosts public-sector and government workloads through Crown Hosting Data Centres.
Why expansion matters
Governments increasingly avoid hosting sensitive data overseas due to:
- national security concerns
- data jurisdiction laws
- cyber-resilience requirements
What the Corsham model shows
Instead of many small server rooms across departments, the UK centralises computing into hardened campuses.
Outcome
- stronger security
- lower operating cost
- easier disaster recovery
👉 The expansion is therefore less about commercial hosting and more about state digital infrastructure — similar to building power stations in the 20th century.
2) Planning resistance vs national infrastructure
Local reaction pattern
Large data centres often trigger objections:
- visual impact
- noise from cooling systems
- flood and water usage concerns
- property value fears
Corsham fits a repeated UK pattern:
Local inconvenience vs national necessity
What councils must balance
| Local priority | National priority |
|---|---|
| landscape protection | digital economy growth |
| environmental impact | AI & cloud capacity |
| community acceptance | government resilience |
Insight:
Data centres are becoming politically comparable to railways or wind farms — essential but controversial.
3) AI demand driving physical construction
The growth driver is no longer just cloud storage.
New workloads:
- machine learning
- large-scale analytics
- generative AI processing
These require:
- dense power supply
- cooling capacity
- secure campuses
So expansion decisions now follow computing demand curves, not office demand.
The economy is building factories again — but for computation instead of manufacturing.
4) Regional economic development strategy
Why locations like Corsham are chosen
Not major cities, but near infrastructure:
- power availability
- fibre routes
- distance from flood plains
- land availability
Economic effect
Data centres bring:
- construction jobs (short term)
- technical maintenance roles (long term)
- local supplier ecosystems
However they generate fewer permanent jobs than factories — which explains mixed local support.
Expert commentary
1) Data centres are becoming critical national infrastructure
Electricity grids enabled industrial economies.
Data centres enable digital economies.
Governments now treat hosting capacity similarly to:
- transport networks
- telecom backbones
- energy security
This approval reflects strategic policy more than property development.
2) The UK planning system is entering a new era
Traditional planning categories:
- housing
- retail
- offices
- industry
Now there’s a fifth:
computation infrastructure
Councils increasingly judge proposals based on national competitiveness rather than local demand.
3) The environmental debate is evolving
Opposition often focuses on power consumption, yet modern facilities:
- run higher efficiency cooling
- consolidate inefficient legacy servers
- sometimes reduce total national energy use
So paradoxically, building a large centre can lower overall emissions by replacing thousands of smaller ones.
4) What this means for the tech sector
The expansion signals:
- rising AI compute demand
- government preference for domestic hosting
- long-term growth in physical internet infrastructure
Cloud computing is no longer “virtual” — it’s heavy industry in a different form.
Final takeaway
The Corsham expansion isn’t just another building approval.
It shows a structural shift:
countries now compete not only for talent and capital —
but for processing power.
And data-centre campuses are becoming the physical backbone of modern economies, much like ports and rail hubs were in earlier eras.